Client Magnets Blog

No one person excels at everything. A good student may exceed in school, but has a propensity for one particular subject area more than others. An athlete may shine in one sport but fail miserably at another.

A successful business owner may have the expertise to start his own business, but may not have all the skills necessary to really run that business. Identifying your assets – those things you do really well -  is the first step toward your business being successful. Identifying what you don’t do well is naturally the second step. And delegating those things to someone else is the third.

For every area where your skills are lacking, there is usually someone out there who has the ability to do what you need, and do it well.

Before you start trying to identify what those things are, try taking this strengths assessment test devised by Kathy Kolbe. You can find it at www.Kolbe.com. The test is a series of multiple choice questions, which I personally found very illuminating in helping me to identify my strengths.

As a result of taking that test, I really began to develop my business around them. It gave me the proverbial “boot up the rear” to make sure that I was spending my time on the things that I was best at. And, it helped me to recognize where I was attempting to do things that weren’t my strengths or that were even my weaknesses. What a waste of time those things were for me.

So I recommend that you check out that test.

It will help you to identify those things in your business that you want to hang on to, that you want to spend more of your time on. By the same token, it’s important to identify what you don’t want, and what things stand in the way of your definition of success. These are the things you will want to outsource so you can spend more time on the things you enjoy.

Once you’ve done this inventory and exploration, start thinking not only about your strengths, but about what things you are going to outsource. I recommend that you make a list of those things that you want to outsource in your personal life, as well as in your business.

These two go hand in hand. If I think back on my own outsourcing evolution, I can see that I started outsourcing on a personal level well before I started doing it on a business level.

Think of outsourcing personal tasks as the nursery slopes. For me, the personal things I outsourced involved having someone else do my shopping online, having someone shop for and deliver my groceries to me. Getting someone to help with the housekeeping. I can’t even remember the last time I touched an iron.

Don’t confuse outsourcing with laziness. It’s not about that. Outsourcing those personal tasks is like practicing using your outsourcing muscle.

I know that there are some people that would say, “I would never have someone else to do my grocery shopping. How will I know if I get the right tomatoes or not?”

That’s actually part of getting comfortable with delegating. And it’s part of practicing trusting people to do the job for you. And if it helps you to start in that arena, then by all means, start there.

I think that once you make your list, the great thing about it is that it really starts to free up some of your mental energy. What I call your psychic RAM.

Sometimes, when there’s a load of things on your to-do list, it can feel like lots of little hooks hooking into you. And the combination of all those hooks is really draining.

You don’t have to outsource everything at once. But do start by making the list. It will help you to bolster your vision of the future of your business. The vision where you are utilizing your strengths and doing the things you love and excel at, while allowing all those other things to be handled by an efficient team. And all you have to do is oversee it.

You may not be there right now, but you will be. So start making that list of the things you want to outsource today.